Placement Aptitude (Quant, Logical, Verbal) Module 19 – Reading, ordering and writing
Para summary and odd sentence out
Choose the summary that keeps a paragraph's main idea and scope, find the sentence that breaks its chain of ideas, and complete a paragraph with its last line.
What you will learn
- Choose the summary that keeps a paragraph's main idea, its scope and its relation
- Find the sentence that does not belong in a paragraph by the chain of reasoning links
- Complete a paragraph with the sentence that follows from its last idea
Before you start
What you’ll learn · Before you start
What you will learn
- Choose the summary that keeps a paragraph's main idea, its scope and its relation
- Find the sentence that does not belong in a paragraph by the chain of reasoning links
- Complete a paragraph with the sentence that follows from its last idea
Before you start
On this page
Four one-sentence summaries of a paragraph, and only one keeps what the paragraph says: a para summary question asks which. The right summary keeps the paragraph’s main idea and its scope, drops the examples and adds nothing new. An odd sentence out question gives five sentences, four of which make a paragraph, and asks for the one that does not belong; the odd one is often on the same topic and still breaks the chain of reasoning. Paragraph completion asks for the sentence that should end a paragraph.
All three test what reading comprehension tests, seeing what a paragraph is about and how its sentences link, which GATE’s verbal aptitude and CAT’s Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension section both examine.
A summary keeps the main idea, its scope and its relation
Many first-year students treat the first weeks of the semester as a warm-up and begin studying seriously only when the mid-term timetable appears. The cost is not the same in every course. In mathematics and programming, where each week builds on the one before, a student who skipped the early weeks cannot follow the later ones, and the lost weeks are hard to win back in the busiest part of the term. In history, where topics stand apart, a late start is easier to repair. A slow start costs most, then, where each week depends on the last.
Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries defines a summary as a short statement that gives only the main points of something, not the details. For a paragraph, the main point has three parts: the main idea, its scope: Whom or what a statement covers, and how much of it. A summary that covers more ground than its paragraph is too broad, and one that covers less is too narrow., meaning whom or what it covers and how much, and the relation between its ideas, such as a cause, a contrast or a condition. Examples, numbers and names are details, and a para summary drops them. The figure turns this into four checks:
Four checks, four ways a summary goes wrong
Text description of the diagram
The diagram is a column of five boxes joined by arrows, from top to bottom:
- Does the option keep the main idea? If it keeps only one detail, it is too narrow.
- Does it keep the scope? If it claims more ground, it is too broad; if less, it is too narrow.
- Does it keep the relation between the ideas? If it changes a cause, a contrast or a condition, it is distorted.
- Does it add a claim? If it brings in an idea the paragraph never makes, it is wrong.
- An option that passes all four checks is the summary.
Step through the four checks on four summaries of the paragraph above:
The drawing shows the whole scene; its 6 steps are listed below.
Every step as text
- The paragraph's point. The paragraph says that a slow start to the semester costs most in courses where each week builds on the last. That is the main idea, its scope and its condition.
- Option C. 'Many students begin studying only when the mid-term timetable appears.' It keeps one detail of the first sentence and loses the cost: too narrow, caught by check 1.
- Option D. 'Students who start the semester late fail their courses.' All courses is more ground than the paragraph covers: too broad, caught by check 2.
- Option D again. Fail is stronger than costs most, and the condition, where each week builds on the last, has gone, so D is distorted as well, caught by check 3.
- Option A. 'Students should study mathematics harder than history.' The paragraph advises nothing, so this is a new claim, caught by check 4.
- Option B. 'A slow start to the semester costs most in courses where each week builds on the one before.' It passes all four checks, so B is the summary.
Key idea
The right summary passes four checks: it keeps the main idea, the same scope and the same relation, and it adds no claim.
Two more errors, in a line each: “Mobile banking has cut queues at village branches” is too broad for a paragraph about one district’s branches, and “good students sleep more” distorts a paragraph that says sleeping well makes exams easier, because it reverses the cause.
Choosing by shared words
Counting the paragraph’s words in an option misleads: option C of the steps above repeats a whole clause and still fails the first check. Judge a summary on its idea, scope and relation, never on the words it shares.
Checkpoint
Check: The four checks of a summary
The odd sentence out follows from no other sentence
- The hostel’s water cooler broke down in the first week of the summer term.
- Students began buying bottled water from the shop outside the gate.
- The shop raised its price within a fortnight, as demand doubled.
- The hostel was built on land given by a family of the town.
- The hostel warden had the cooler repaired only after two hundred students signed a petition.
The sentences that belong form a chain: each follows from the one before, as a result, a reason, a next step or a reference. The odd sentence out: A question type that gives five sentences, four of which make a paragraph, and asks for the one that does not belong: the sentence that no other sentence leads to or follows from. is often on the topic and may repeat a word, but nothing in the chain leads to it or from it, because it shifts the focus, the scope or the time. Step through the links of the hostel item:
The drawing shows the whole scene; its 6 steps are listed below.
Every step as text
- Five sentences. Five sentences about a hostel, and the question is which one does not belong. Look for links of reasoning, not for shared words.
- 1 to 2. Students began buying bottled water because the cooler broke, so 2 follows from 1 as a result.
- 2 to 3. Their buying is the demand that doubled, so the shop's price rise in 3 follows from 2.
- 3 to 5. The price is what drove two hundred students to sign a petition, and the petition got the cooler repaired, so 5 follows from 3.
- Sentence 4. Sentence 4 shares the word hostel with sentence 1, but nothing in the chain leads to the land the hostel was built on, or follows from it. It moves to the hostel's history.
- The answer. Left out, sentence 4 leaves 1, 2, 3, 5 in one chain; no other removal leaves a chain at all. The odd one out is 4.
The program tests the same links: it leaves out each sentence in turn and asks whether the other four still form one chain.
# The odd sentence out, found by its links. Each ordered pair of sentences that a reader can join by reasoning (the
# second is a cause, a result or a later step of the first) is marked by hand; so is every pair that only shares a
# word. The program does not read English: it counts each sentence's links of both kinds, then looks for the one
# sentence whose removal leaves the other four in a chain where every sentence follows from the one before.
from itertools import permutations
SENTENCES = {
1: "The hostel's water cooler broke down in the first week of the summer term.",
2: "Students began buying bottled water from the shop outside the gate.",
3: "The shop raised its price within a fortnight, as demand doubled.",
4: "The hostel was built on land given by a family of the town.",
5: "The hostel warden had the cooler repaired only after two hundred students signed a petition.",
}
REASONS = {
(1, 2): "they bought water because the cooler broke",
(2, 3): "their buying is the demand that doubled",
(3, 5): "the price is what drove the petition",
(1, 5): "the cooler that broke is the one repaired",
}
WORDS = {
(1, 4): "both say 'hostel'",
(4, 5): "both say 'hostel'",
}
def links(n, table):
return sum(n in pair for pair in table)
def chains(rest):
return [o for o in permutations(rest) if all(p in REASONS for p in zip(o, o[1:]))]
for n, text in SENTENCES.items():
print(f"{n}. reasoning links: {links(n, REASONS)}, shared words only: {links(n, WORDS)} {text}")
print()
for n in SENTENCES:
found = chains([m for m in SENTENCES if m != n])
if found:
print(f"Leave out {n}: the rest chain as " + " or ".join("-".join(map(str, c)) for c in found))
else:
print(f"Leave out {n}: no chain of the rest")Output
1. reasoning links: 2, shared words only: 1 The hostel's water cooler broke down in the first week of the summer term. 2. reasoning links: 2, shared words only: 0 Students began buying bottled water from the shop outside the gate. 3. reasoning links: 2, shared words only: 0 The shop raised its price within a fortnight, as demand doubled. 4. reasoning links: 0, shared words only: 2 The hostel was built on land given by a family of the town. 5. reasoning links: 2, shared words only: 1 The hostel warden had the cooler repaired only after two hundred students signed a petition. Leave out 1: no chain of the rest Leave out 2: no chain of the rest Leave out 3: no chain of the rest Leave out 4: the rest chain as 1-2-3-5 Leave out 5: no chain of the rest
Recorded with Python 3.14.8 on macOS 26 arm64. To run it yourself: mise exec python@3.14.8 -- python3 odd_one.py
Runs on this device, in your browser. The first run downloads Python (about 13.5 MB), which is kept for the next runs.
Your run, in this browser
Sentence 4 shares the word hostel with two others but follows from none of them. Left out, it leaves 1, 2, 3, 5 in one order, and no other removal leaves a chain at all.
The shift can be one of time, as with four sentences about this year’s placement drive and one about the college’s founding, or of focus, as with four sentences on why a canteen’s queue grew and one praising its food.
Checkpoint
Check: The sentence with no reasoning link
The last sentence follows from the paragraph’s last idea
After “The library extended its hours. Within a month the evening seats were full, and students began queueing at the door”, the ending “The college is now looking for a second reading room” follows the queue; “The library extended its hours” only repeats the start. The last sentence follows from the paragraph’s last idea, usually as its result or its conclusion. An option that repeats the opening adds nothing, and one that starts a new topic breaks the chain.
| Ending option | Follows from | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| The college is now looking for a second reading room | the queue at the door | the ending |
| The library extended its hours | nothing new: the opening again | repeats the start |
| The library also sells stationery | nothing in the paragraph | a new topic |
Checkpoint
Check: Completing a paragraph from its last idea
Practise: summaries, odd sentences and endings
The exercise finds the odd sentence from its links. In the untimed practice after it, a question you miss comes back once before the end.
Exercise · Medium · Python
Find the odd sentence out by the chain it breaks
In an odd-sentence item, all the sentences but one make a paragraph. The sentences are numbered from 1 to n, and links is a set of pairs (a, b): sentence b can follow sentence a, because it gives a result, a reason, a next step or a reference to it. Write odd_sentence(n, links), which returns the sentence whose removal leaves the others in an order where every sentence can follow the one before it.
Return that sentence only when exactly one sentence qualifies. When none qualifies, or more than one does, the item is flawed: return None. A sentence may have a link and still be the odd one out, if the chain of the others has no place for it.
Starter code · odd.py
from itertools import permutations
def odd_sentence(n, links):
"""The one sentence whose removal leaves the others in a chain of links, or None if there is not exactly one."""
# Replace this line with your code.
return NoneThe sample tests · test_odd.py
from odd import odd_sentence
def test_hostel_item():
"""The lesson's item: sentence 4 is about the hostel's history and links to nothing"""
assert odd_sentence(5, {(1, 2), (2, 3), (3, 5), (1, 5)}) == 4
def test_odd_in_the_middle():
"""The odd sentence can sit anywhere in the jumble"""
assert odd_sentence(5, {(1, 2), (2, 4), (4, 5)}) == 3
def test_linked_but_odd():
"""Sentence 5 can follow sentence 1, but the chain 1-2-3-4 leaves no place for it"""
assert odd_sentence(5, {(1, 2), (2, 3), (3, 4), (1, 5)}) == 5
def test_two_candidates():
"""Either end of a plain chain could be left out: a flawed item"""
assert odd_sentence(4, {(1, 2), (2, 3), (3, 4)}) is None
def test_no_candidate():
"""Two separate pairs: no single removal leaves a chain"""
assert odd_sentence(5, {(1, 2), (3, 4)}) is NoneA hint
Try each sentence in turn as the one left out. For the others, itertools.permutations(rest) gives every order; an order works when every neighbouring pair (a, b) from zip(order, order[1:]) is in links. Collect the sentences whose removal leaves a working order, and return the only one, or None.
Results of the sample tests
| Test | Result | Details |
|---|
What your code printed
The sample tests run on this device, in your browser (Pyodide): nothing is sent to mysmartcopilot.com. The first run downloads Python (about 13.5 MB), which is kept for the next runs. A check in your browser is feedback for you, not proof that the code is right for every input.
Practice that adapts to you
Practise this lesson
10 questions about 5 ideas of this lesson. Each answer is explained at once, and what you get right is kept in this browser.
Seven more items, worked option by option Pro: opens with a Pro, Premium or Ultimate pass
Each item below names the error of every wrong option, so that a miss can be traced to the check that would have caught it. Three summaries come first, then two odd sentences and two completions.
In this part:
- Three summary items, every option rated
- Two odd-sentence items, with the chain drawn
- Two completion items, worked
- The checks in one table
about 5 minutes
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Writing a summary to a word limit, checked by count and by rubric Pro: opens with a Pro, Premium or Ultimate pass
Choosing a summary trains the same skill as writing one, and writing one is what a workplace email asks for in its first sentence. This part writes a 25-word summary in three drafts, checks each by program and scores the result with a rubric.
In this part:
- Three steps from paragraph to summary
- Three drafts of one summary, checked by program
- Cuts that change the meaning, and how to catch them
- A rubric for a written summary
- The same skill in an email’s first sentence
1 runnable example (Python) · about 3 minutes
Opening this part with your pass…Pro part. It opens with the same pass as the part above.
An eight-minute timed set, with answers and a rubric Pro: opens with a Pro, Premium or Ultimate pass
Six items, two of each format, for eight minutes on a clock. Each worked answer names the check that settles its item, and the rubric matches your score to the format that needs the most work.
In this part:
- Six items for eight minutes
- Worked answers, with the check that settles each
- A rubric: what your score and time say
about 3 minutes
Opening this part with your pass…Pro part. It opens with the same pass as the part above.
Interview questions
-
Fresher · Warm-up
How do you tell a summary that is too narrow from one that is too broad?
Compare what the option covers with what the paragraph covers. A too-narrow summary keeps one detail or one part of the paragraph, such as an example or its first sentence, and loses the main idea: "Many students begin studying only when the mid-term timetable appears" for a paragraph about what a slow start costs. A too-broad summary claims more ground than the paragraph does: more people or places, every case instead of some, or a verdict where the paragraph set a condition, as in "Students who start late fail their courses". The check is the scope, whom or what the paragraph's idea covers and how much. The right summary covers exactly that ground, no more and no less, and keeps the relation between the ideas.
-
Fresher to mid
Two options of a para summary item both look right: one is short and general, the other longer and closer to the paragraph's words. How do you decide between them, and when would you call the item flawed?
-
Fresher to mid
In an odd-sentence item, the odd one out repeats the paragraph's key word, while a sentence that belongs shares no word with the others. A candidate picks the sentence with no shared words. What went wrong, and how do you find the real odd one out?
-
Fresher to mid
In paragraph completion items, a candidate keeps choosing the option that restates the paragraph's opening, because it "sums up". Explain the error, and give a check that separates a real conclusion from a restatement.
Key takeaways
- A para summary keeps the main idea, its scope and its relation, and drops examples and numbers.
- Wrong summaries are too narrow, too broad, distorted or add a claim.
- The odd sentence out may share the topic but follows from no other sentence.
- A paragraph’s last sentence follows from its last idea, not from its first.
Terms in this lesson
- odd sentence out
- A question type that gives five sentences, four of which make a paragraph, and asks for the one that does not belong: the sentence that no other sentence leads to or follows from.
- scope
- Whom or what a statement covers, and how much of it. A summary that covers more ground than its paragraph is too broad, and one that covers less is too narrow.
References
- Press release for the Common Admission Test 2026 (CAT 2026): duration and sections (Indian Institute of Management Indore (CAT 2026))
- GATE 2027 General Aptitude syllabus: Verbal Aptitude (reading and comprehension, narrative sequencing) (Indian Institute of Technology Madras (GATE 2027))
- Writing for understanding: clear and short (one topic per paragraph, topic sentences) (Digital.gov, U.S. General Services Administration)
- summary (noun), Oxford Learner's Dictionaries (Oxford University Press)
- itertools: permutations (Python Software Foundation)
Related tools
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